The effortless demolition of Liberal Party aspirant Jaymes Diaz by Channel Ten reporter John Hill made for excruciating viewing in the Coalition campaign bunker in Melbourne.

It wasn't even the end of day one and Liberal Party boss Brian Loughnane must have been wondering how many other implosive candidates he has in his ranks.

Interview fail: Jaymes Diaz talks to Channel Ten.

The Coalition has been criticised for peddling three-word slogans but party supporters should rightly expect that a Liberal candidate could memorise six points of the plan to stop boats.

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Looking like Bambi dropped into a scene of Sharknado, Diaz couldn't offer one.

The unedited version of Hill's gentle savaging of Diaz, who is standing in the seat of Greenway, offered up worse. Like Diaz's take on Direct Action: "We're doing more than planting trees ... we have a solar panel," he spluttered before a media handler did everyone a favour and called the interview off.

While the Liberal team in Melbourne will be scratching its head at the quality of the candidate selection process in Sydney, one person who will not be surprised in the slightest is Tony Abbott.

Abbott spent more than a year looking for a Greenway solution.

It has long been known in Liberal circles that the Diaz family has control of the local branches in Greenway, centred around Blacktown and including suburbs like Seven Hills, Toongabbie and Kellyville Ridge.

Jaymes Diaz and his father Jess, a Blacktown councillor, are migration agents and influential members of the large Filipino community in the area.

The local joke goes that the second piece of paperwork you get to sign with your visa documents when you deal with the Diaz family is a Liberal Party membership.

A Liberal insider puts it like this: “Our problem is the opposite of Labor's. We have too much local democracy. Because of that, branch stacking is a bigger problem for us.”

Abbott's conundrum was whether to intervene to stop Diaz being preselected a second time by the local rank and file, knowing that he had fallen 702 votes short to Labor's Michelle Rowland in 2010.

Abbott blamed poor candidate selection in western Sydney, including the anti-Muslim train wreck candidate, David Barker, in Chifley, for his failure to beat Julia Gillard to the Lodge in 2010.

Over a period of 12 months, Abbott approached a number of people to step up in Greenway. They included David Elliott, the state member for Baulkham Hills and Nick Tyrell, a NSW government policy adviser and one time Blacktown councillor. Serial potential candidate Angry Anderson was even considered but nothing progressed.

When a preselection was called, the nominees included people who it can only be assumed would have made a better fist of Hill's questions. They included, Yvonne Keane, a TV presenter who has worked on Channel Seven's Today Tonight and Hot Property. She was named NSW Woman of the Year in 2012 for her charity work.

Mark Taylor, the son of a former NSW police commissioner, Neil Taylor and Brett Murray, an anti-bullying campaigner and four-time Australian of the year nominee.

But for any of those people to become the candidate it would have required Abbott's direct intervention. As an insider put it to me at the time: “The clock is ticking and we are waiting for guidance from Tony. He will get the candidate he wants - if he thinks a female would have the best chance, that's what will happen - but so far he hasn't made any noises. As prime minister-in-waiting, the time has come for him to step in here."

One reason he didn't step in was the intra-party war that began in NSW when the state executive imposed candidates in the two must win central coast seats of Robertson and Dobell.

That blue between the Right and Left factions went all the way to the Supreme Court and left a lot of blood and wasted money on the floor.

Abbott could not afford another factional war and stood back from the contest in Greenway to allow the branches to decide.

51 comments

"Too much local democracy" - BRILLIANT.I actually think this guy offered a comprehensive summary of the LNP's positions during this interview....happy to be proven wrong!

Commenter

frank

Date and time

August 06, 2013, 12:57PM

This guy is graduated from the Tony Abbott Institute of Politics with an elephant stamp.Serve up a question..volley back with a 3 word slogan, over and over and over and over.

Commenter

Captain Grumpy

Location

Kingsville

Date and time

August 06, 2013, 1:26PM

So there are factional deals and skullduggery a foot in the matters of LNP pre-selection? From the complete lack of reporting on this stuff, you'd think it never went on and it was only the ALP that had internal squabbles.

Nice to have a bit of balance finally.

And bravo to the Ten reporter for having the cohones to take it up to Mr. Diaz. Of course it'll probably result in him getting a call from Lachlan later today about a 'change of role'.

Commenter

Scrutineer

Date and time

August 06, 2013, 3:47PM

It is refreshing that Mr Rudd also commiserated with Mr Diaz noting the he (Rudd) too had made gaffes and errors during his many election campaigns. Pity some of the commenters here don't have the same sense of fair play

Commenter

Ian

Location

Fremantle

Date and time

August 06, 2013, 4:12PM

Considering both major parties are now less than 40,000 members, which is what an average of 300 members per electorate, it's a bit rich to suggest there is any level of "democracy" going on here.

Commenter

mattInNorthSyd

Location

Crows Nest

Date and time

August 06, 2013, 4:20PM

Hey - did he say anything more silly than anything Abbott says? Probably not - he just didn't know when to say stop - and neither did his minder, presumably because the minder was another member of the Diaz clan. We pay these people to run the country - unbelievable.

Commenter

Lucas

Date and time

August 06, 2013, 4:58PM

The kids on the footy show with the Big Mann answer questions better than this. Embarrassing really. I think I will go out to the north shore and have a crack at it to relieve my anxiety. Easy to to get out that way.

Commenter

Andy

Date and time

August 06, 2013, 5:44PM

The skeptic in me says that the LNP Campaign team would have happily organised the interview and told the reporter to go hard (mind you, he didn't need to). Embarrass the guy that Tony never wanted but who had stacked the branches to get nominated.

I suspect the rest of the story will play out like this:1) Diaz withdraws as candidate before end of day;2) Abbott espouses praise for Diaz;3) Abbott installs his choice (extraordinarily) quickly;4) All done and dusted on day 2 of campaign with no serious damage.

Commenter

Andrew

Location

Perth

Date and time

August 06, 2013, 1:00PM

@Andrew: Absolutely agree. Get rid him now, a liability. It's good that he can see himself performing in front of the national audience which will help him to decide that he can either be pushed or do the decent thing for both himself and the party and go.